Influence of Students’ Learning Style, Sense of Presence, and Cognitive Load on Learning Outcomes in an Immersive Virtual Reality Learning Environment

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among Taiwanese high school students’ learning style, sense of presence, cognitive load, and affective and cognitive learning outcomes in an immersive virtual reality-based learning environment. This study used a teaching experiment intervention method. Seventy-seven students participated in the virtual reality-based learning environment and completed related scales and a test. This study found that although the students’ learning style does not influence learning outcomes, it may influence the subjective sense of presence and cognitive load in the learning process. Regarding the affective learning outcome, involvement/immersion, sensory fidelity, and mental effort are positive predictors. In addition, involvement/immersion, interface quality, mental load, and mental effort are negative predictors of cognitive learning outcomes. The conclusion from this study is that students with some learning style preferences must bear a greater cognitive load to achieve the same learning outcomes as other students. This study also points out that the components of sense of presence and cognitive load generate inconsistent predictive effects on affective and cognitive learning outcomes, respectively. Therefore, it is important to deeply explore the influence of sense of presence and cognitive load structure on learning in virtual environments.

Investigating the Mediation and Moderation Effect of Students’ Addiction to Virtual Reality Games: A Perspective of Structural Equation Modeling

“…e results of this study showed that VRI creates a high level of satisfaction among users. Similarly, previous studies have suggested that interactivity with advanced technology (VR) affects attitude and creates a positive attitude [94]. Moreover, researchers have expressed serious concerns about health and addiction toward Internet games.…”

Students’ motivational beliefs and strategies, perceived immersion and attitudes towards science learning with immersive virtual reality: A partial least squares analysis

“…According to the previous interpretation, the psychological learning traits may influence subjective engrossing experiences in the virtual learning context (Chu, Humer, & Eckhardt, 2019; Huang et al, 2020) and be related to learning perceptions and attitudes (Cai et al, 2019; Dindar & Akbulut, 2015; Hopp et al, 2015). The subjective engrossing experiences such as perceived immersion have also been verified as linking with perceptions of learning benefits and outcomes (Huang et al, 2010, 2016; Makransky & Lilleholt, 2018).…”

“…To have the participants experience a stronger sense of immersion, using head‐mounted displays (HMD) to support virtual reality applications is necessary. For example, the high‐end HMD headsets (eg, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift) have been utilized for biology learning (Huang, Luo, Yang, Lu, & Chen, 2020) and environmental education (Markowitz et al, 2018). However, for the implementation of IVR instruction or learning in classrooms, the setup of IVR with high‐end HMD requires certain exercise space for users to operate and hence may result in some practical limitations.…”

“…Therefore, the IVR applications with low‐cost HMD are more competitive in instructional practices (Geng, Jong, Luk, & Jiang, 2018; Vishwanath, Kam, & Kumar, 2017) and are increasingly being used for science education (Boda & Brown, 2019; Parong & Mayer, 2018). In addition, educational IVR‐related studies have mostly focused on the targets of adult learners (eg, Huang et al, 2020; Markowitz et al, 2018; Parong & Mayer, 2018), paying relatively less attention to young students (eg, Boda & Brown, 2019). Since research has implied the potentials for the implementation of learning by IVR in elementary classrooms (Cheng & Tsai, 2019; Vishwanath et al, 2017), there is a need to explore young learners’ perceptions of and attitudes toward learning science by IVR technology with low‐cost HMD in the context of educational practices.…”

Towards the revolution and democratization of education: a framework to overcome challenges and explore opportunities through Industry 4.0

“…ECNU studies on the application of VR in face-to-face learning environments have identified an increase in the sense of students' presence and the relevance of visual processing in children's learning, revealing the importance of the use of new virtual technologies in curricula and teaching materials for these students. (Huang et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2020). As a way to better instruct pedagogy graduates on these technologies, ECNU developed for its pedagogy course the subject "Modern Education Technology," in which the main skills and competencies necessary for the use of ICT in teaching-learning are addressed (Lim et al, 2015).…”